Green cities: Means to accommodate climate change

Clean air, clean water, healthy soil and biodiversity are the attributes of a green city.
The green city should have an abundance of healthy food at affordable prices, energy-efficient buildings, and efficient public transport.
Green city folk have the wherewithal to think ahead as they will have opportunities for professional development and create and maintain a flexible industrial infrastructure with competitiveness always in mind.
Products will be recyclable for sustainable consumption and technological innovations will be eco-friendly in the green city.
Indeed, the future is urban.
At present, cities consume one-third of energy produced globally.
Seven out of ten people will be living in cities while the frequency and severity of climate change will increase.
Therefore, urban development comes with strategies to avert environmental degradation. Green cities come in many guises: ecological, environment-friendly, compact, spongy and circular.
A sponge city can absorb rainwater; manage flood water at half the costs of concrete drains.
According to a study published by Arup, a British multinational firm that provides design, engineering, architecture, planning, and advisory services for the built-up environment, Cairo is a 20 per cent spongy city, with Kigali (43 per cent), Lagos (39 per cent), Durban (40 per cent) and Nairobi (34 per cent).
In Egypt, the New Administrative Capital (NAC) is an example of a compact city to maximise socio-economic and environmental potential in terms of high productivity, low carbon emissions, easy traffic flow, energy consumption and land use.
Promoting the use of new and renewable energy, sustainable transport, rational water and solid waste management and sustainable green construction add up to a green city.
Building green cities in Egypt will mean that amenities and services will be a 15-minute walk away.